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Cincinnati Bell partner StarTek ramps up customer support staff

Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) on Tuesday said that its call center and customer care partner StarTek (NYSE:SRT) is adding 136 employees in the Tri-State region it serves and transferring in jobs from overseas locations, more than doubling the size of its local call center operation.

The telco and its partner plan to also transfer 200 call positions from overseas locations to the region over the next year and a half.

Besides being more responsive to its customer base, the new call center hiring push will potentially drive more energy into the local economy by providing more employment opportunities.

Marc James, vice president of Customer Operations, said in a company release that "By bringing these jobs back to the region from overseas, we will have more local call center agents than we did five years ago."

Another key point of this new hiring drive is to serve the telco's ongoing growth of emerging service sets such as its Fioptics video and data, data center, and IT consulting services.

As traditional voice revenues continue to decline at Cincinnati Bell, next-gen services like Fioptics and data center services via their Cyrus One subsidiary are key revenue drivers, as seen in its Q2 2012 earnings. The service provider reported that Cyrus One revenues rose 20 percent or $9 million from Q2 2011, to $54 million, while it passed another 22,000 homes with its Fioptics services.

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